Forget the Champions Trophy, when England and Australia clash on Saturday it's about one thing, and one thing only

Everybody has done their best to give the impression that other things were really, really important when they weren’t, but the pretending is finally almost over. Next weekend, after an interval of 404 days, England and Australia will meet again on the field of play.

England, of course, have a match to play against India today, but whatever they say, and the pretence has to go on a bit longer yet, it is next Saturday’s fixture in Jaipur’s Mansingh stadium by which they and their increasingly fractious foe have set their watches.

Okay, it is only a group match in the Champions Trophy, a one-day event that the whole game seems to be contractually obliged to talk up into something it is not. In military terms it is little more than a skirmish, but coming so close to the main battle for the Ashes, any contact with